Title: Maybe, Just Maybe
Disclaimer: Please don't; purely for entertainment, creators of 'Buffy'. The characters I created are mine. So steal my idea, or 'borrow' without my permission, and I will be the one to sue.
Pairings:Buffy/Faith
Feedback: Always, please tell me everything you think, plus I want to know if it's good or not
Rating: R for adult scenes
Note: Let me know if you want to read the un-cut version, because I had to cut a mahuuusive section out, for obvious reasons. But it's major adult scenes so I didn't post it up here. So let me know if you wanna read and I'll send it to you. Keep reviewing, please, please, please!
Chapter 10
I jammed the stake in his chest, being careful to keep my guard as I watched his former state crumble into an ashy pile of grey dust. I lost my stake. Crap. And there was another one coming towards me. Hard and fast. I moved out of his way and smacked him in the back as he went past, causing him to fall on his knees.
I could hear her across the way, fighting as hard as I was. And I could hear Will, fighting harder than both of us two put together. I twisted the vamps head off his shoulders and he too was dust. I sighed and looked over at the girls in turn. First Will. She was okay. She didn't need my help, she had it all down. I think just watching her for two seconds I'd seen two opportunities she could'a taken to stake him. She knew she could have too. She's a clever girl.
Then I looked over at Faith, yelling at the bastard as she backhanded him several times, then staked him right in his soft spot. She took a step back and sighed before looking up to find me looking at her. She smiled sweetly and her eyes glowed.
I heard Will yell followed by a thud, then I looked. Crap. The vamp had floored her. I hurried over and kicked him, sending him flying back, AWAY from her, thank god. Faith rushed up to the vamp and staked him, and I stayed at Will's side, helping her up. 'You okay?' She nodded.
'I think I might be concussed, though.' I looked at where she'd landed. Very close to a gravestone. Her head could've hit it.
'What's my name?'
'Buffy, I'm kidding, I'm fine,' she said through quickened breaths of air. Faith approached us and Will put her free hand in Faith's, we helped her up together. We resumed walking, Will between Faith and I, and somehow I found myself inwardly cursing at how she was. Why? We'd be alone later on.
'You know, I'm really liking this…whole me, patrolling with you two, it's fun and also, I kick ass. We all do…in a good way, which is good cos now, we can all…'
'I thought you were out of breath, Red?' Faith asked gently followed by a slight chuckle, and Will smiled.
'I really do go on, don't I?' she said and we all chuckled.
'So who's up for the Bronze? I hear there's a really great band playing tonight, I forget the name, but still, all three of us, getting' d-'
'As far as I'm concerned, I'll get down, but no dirty. I have school tomorrow,' Willow said and Faith and I slowed up and she walked on.
I smiled to myself and Faith tapped me on the arm lightly. 'How 'bout it, girlfriend?'
I contemplated her words for a second. 'No.'
'No? Why not?'
I looked up and cocked my head thoughtfully to the side. 'Well…we have…' I pointed to myself and mouthed "my house" as I watched her watching me. '…For that. Or yours…of course…' I smiled and I could see now that her smile had turned into a shit-eating grin.
'Okay, B. I'll take you up on that offer.' She sucked in a breath through her mouth, furrowed her eyebrows and shoved her hands into the back pockets of her dark jeans.
I knew she was about to say something, so I took the liberty of cutting in. 'Lemme guess?' She looked to me. 'Juiced?'
She flashed me a grin, but I could see her blushing as her gaze fell and her eyes twinkled. She never blushed like that before, when she used to tell me that. She'd be all cool about it saying how she was itching to give one more vamp a big, bad "uhh" for dessert. But she was actually blushing this time, grinning as she watched her own feet walking, her hands tucked away from me.
- - -
I sighed out a long breath as I looked over the words in front of me. What they meant, I had no idea. As if my brain was ready to absorb this right now.
'I-It says that the messages could all be linked. And you say that you've had no more dreams since that-that stomach one, correct?' Giles asked from his office.
I raised my voice to speak to him. 'Uh, no, not that I can remember. I think if it was anything unusual I would remember it, but nothing.'
'What about Faith? Has she had any dreams?'
I shook my head. 'Not that I know of.'
He returned to the table with a box of books with a large book poking out of the top. I looked at it and frowned. 'Is that useful?' It was that "Vampyr" book…I didn't like that thing.
'Maybe.'
Actually I think it was a different one. Looked as ancient.
He sat down across from me and picked out the book, opened it. I looked over at it, trying to see the words on the page. It didn't matter because they were all in a foreign-type ancient language. 'Markings?'
He shook his head. 'Not just markings. Ancient tribes used to draw what they saw. Messages from the Jordipe, in detail, as it seems. Could have some useful information, some…cryptic code that may come in handy.'
'So these tribes…they were led into apocalypse?'
'Well I've been trying to figure out what the pictures mean, but they seem so encrypted that it might take some sort of translation code to crack them.'
'Well, lemme take a look, see if anything looks familiar.'
He slid the book across to me as I shoved my other one aside and I looked at the upside down book. 'It goes this way, ' I recognised immediately. 'This way round, you were looking at it upside down.' I looked up at him and he looked at me confusedly. 'There. They're the marching men. That's the stick thing they all had one of. And that's where they were.'
'How do you know?'
I shook my head and looked at the page indifferently. 'I, don't know I just do.' I looked closer at the page to see if anything else looked familiar. 'That's the Jordipe.'
I have no idea how I knew that, but it felt strange, just being able to recognise it from looking at it for a second.
'How do you know?'
'Same way I'm guessing I knew all the other things.' I drew in a breath. 'Is this a journal?'
Giles shrugged. 'Could be. It's so ancient, all of the markings, words, whatever, are all in this code I have no idea how to translate. See, here,' he continued as he turned the page for me.
What's all this? I thought to myself as he started dragging his finger along the top line. 'I think you're looking at it the wrong way, Giles.'
He frowned. 'You really think?'
I nodded. 'Turn it this way.' I turned the book sideways. 'They will march forth into the gates of Hiashaa and shall be anointed by the Hal-hal-h…haalaakshaa…' That's a long word.
I looked up at Giles who was looking at me as if I had been learning this language my entire life. I shrugged. 'What?'
He removed his glasses from his face and looked back at the book, trying to see what I had been looking at. Then he looked up, back at me. 'How are you understanding all of this?'
I shrugged. 'I don't actually know. Perhaps it's a slayer-thing…maybe I'm the only one that's supposed to be able to read this.'
I hadn't noticed her come in but as she leaned over the book, I immediately drew in a breath, taking in her scent. Same as ever. Vanilla and strawberries. 'The only being to remain upon the Earth after the Himshalia will be the Slayer, who will not only consume all power but will be the strongest, most powerful evil-whooa that is heavy shit, who wrote that?' she said as she grabbed a chair and sat beside me.
I sat forward and looked at Giles, who was looking at Faith in the same way he had me a few moments ago. I think he was baffled. 'O-Okay…so you understand it too?'
She shrugged. 'It's written in English, Giles, why shouldn't I be able to?'
His head did a "look back and forth Faith and the book" a few times before looking at me. 'Is it me, is it just me or is that not in plaintext English?'
I shrugged. 'It's not written, written in English but the words are like English, I guess. See, if you read it this way.' I dragged my finger along the page in the way I had started to read it in.
He let out a noise, still dumbfounded and then pulled the book towards him. 'I don't see it, how do any of these letters look like words to you?'
I shrugged. Giles moved the book in Faith's direction. 'Read-read it again, what did it say?'
She shrugged. 'Just that the Slayer would be the only one left on the earth and would become the most powerful force of evil.'
'Evil?' I repeated.
She nodded a little and pointed to the book, seemingly laid-back about it. I read it in my head, though muttered slightly under my breath as my eyes scanned over the words. 'So it does,' I said thoughtfully.
I looked up at Giles, slowly, who had been looking astounded at us the entire time. I think we might have stumbled upon something.
- - -
I let down my hair and lay across the bed, only my sheets keeping me from nudity. I flipped one of the wasted pages and tried to make sense of the words I was seeing. Faith had been downstairs getting us some drinks and had been a couple of minutes already, so I decided to get a start on reading this thing.
I closed the book again and just looked at the cover. I swung my legs round and pulled the sheets up to cover me, and I traced a finger along the embossed markings on the front cover. 'The Ancient Laws, Volume…' Eight thousand, eight hundred and twenty…four??? There were that many volumes of Ancient Laws?
The way this was written was weird. It was almost a picture, but not quite. The flow of the lines were what told me what it meant, but I guess it could also be seen as a picture of a spear of some sort. A weapon.
I flipped the cover over and looked at the first page, my eyebrows furrowed deep in my forehead. I think concentration really was beginning to take over.
'She who reads must understand. They who write are to be taken seriously. "And after apocalypse, they will obey her." What?' I muttered to myself, the weird words telling me a further encrypted version of the book. It was in English, but apparently you needed a translation to be able to understand it. Cryptic. I hate cryptic.
I flipped a couple more pages. The way it was written was so strange. Not quite words, not quite pictures. In between where so far the most educated man I knew could not read it.
I tucked my hair behind my ear to stop it from falling over my eyes, and then moved my fingers to the page. They didn't have any raised markings. Just…someone who had hand-written/drawn this book/journal thing.
I flipped a few more pages, taking careful note of how each page I had seen was laid out. They all created a larger picture of maybe a more "universally recognised" object such as a spear, a sword or a crown.
'"In the end, she will rise above them all." What the hell does that mean?' I jumped as I heard the doorknob turn and then come to. It was just Faith but something was putting me on edge. My guess? This stupid book.
'Hey, you,' she said lightly as she carried snacks and drinks and various other stuff.
She soon met me at the bed and kissed my bare shoulder. I glanced at her, smiling a little, though that faded quickly when I looked back at the book. 'Still buggin' over the Slayer being the ultimate evil?'
I shook my head a little. 'This thing is weird. It keeps saying really cryptic things like "she will rise above" and "Haaimshalaalaa" crap, whatever that means.' Something told me that I should learn the pronunciation of that word.
She wrapped an arm around my waist and hugged me. 'Don't worry about it, it's just an old book someone wrote cos they had nothing else to do.'
'Actually, no.' I closed the book and listened to the big, huge "oomph" noise it made when it closed.
There was silence and all I could hear were our breaths. Then she spoke. 'How many volumes are there in total? Like a million?'
I shrugged. 'Probably.'
'So this is all part of some kind of screwed up law?'
I shrugged. 'I guess we have to read it to find out, huh.'
She nodded and moved back onto the bed, her expression shifting from work-related to play-related in the space of approximately two seconds. 'But…can it wait…just a little while?' she said, her voice sounding husky, playful.
I looked back over my shoulder at her near-naked form. There were honestly times I couldn't believe she was sitting on my bed in a jog-bra and a thong. But there she was, hot and horny as ever.
I smiled coyly. 'Just a little while?' She nodded and pouted at me, beginning to twirl her finger on the bed space beside her. I chuckled and kicked the book off the bed.
'Just a…little while, then? Not…a long while?' I said, slowly beginning to make my way up to the other end of the bed.
'Hmm. I'll have to think about that one,' she replied, her eyes looking at her twirling finger.
I reached for that finger and took it into my mouth, slowly licking over it with my tongue, before letting it out of my mouth again and moving it to my entrance. 'Tease me,' I told her, my voice sounding somewhat scarily lustful.
Her smile grew and mine followed suit. As her finger slipped in I let out a high-pitched shriek, my inhaling breath hitching in my throat.
I closed my eyes a moment, just to absorb what had happened then let them open again, to see her watching me. Her finger had paused within me, and now was beginning to move, back and forth, very tauntingly. Slowly, deep, she took every swift movement. Her face told me a story of, "We're Just Getting Started" and her shiny lips told me her tongue was too excited to stay still in her mouth.
- - -
'"The voices shall be heard. And at once they will march towards their leader."' I passed the book to her.
She tucked loose hair behind her ear and I watched for a moment at the glistening skin below her jawbone. My lips wanted so much to kiss her there, just to taste her sweetness.
She caught me looking at her and smiled, then looked back at the book. '"All above shall, bow, all below shall rise."' She passed it to me and I smiled sheepishly as she did. My hand swept across hers as the book switched hands and I felt myself tingle. She still did it for me.
'"There will be sounds."' I went to pass the book back to her, though she shook her head. 'What?'
'You can't just read that, then pass it to me. Read the part underneath,' she urged, pointing to the place on the page.
I scoffed and looked back at the book. 'Okay.' I sucked in a breath of air and sighed it out. '"No human shall survive. Only the One that is meant to. They shall march. She shall lead. She will go. They shall follow."'
'"All together they shall be united. As one…"' She looked up at me, and I urged her to continued with my hand lingering at her waist. '"…Hell."'
I took the book and swallowed, a little worried of the words that would follow. '"She will not fight. She will not struggle. She will not die, but become the ultimate immortality all demons and angels will envy. She will rule."'
'"They will follow."'
We both looked up at Giles, who was looking at us as if we had…well…as if we had both been…how do I put this…never mind. He was looking at us with a complete expression of anxiety. 'That is the most messed up version of apocalypse I have heard. Why would demons want the Slayer to become the most powerful immortality? She…you…two…work to vanquish evil, not work with it.'
I shrugged. 'I dunno.'
'Does it say anything else?'
Faith sighed out a breath of air. 'I dunno.'
Silence. Giles removed his glasses from his face and the rest of it. I looked at Faith as he began speaking and she looked at me. I can say that Giles words were lost from the moment her opened his mouth because I don't believe any of us were listening.
He disappeared into a row of shelves and I moved in close to her, to kiss her, and pressed my lips to her neck feeling immediately the warmth emitting itself from her body. She clutched the small of my back as I kissed her and then she let out a tiny giggle. 'We gotta stop, Giles is gonna go mental if we don't concentrate.'
I continued kissing her neck, though paused for a moment to say, 'Concentrate? I am concentrating,' I said, exhaling against the dip of her neck, then I moved in close to suck in her skin to my mouth, to bite it…just gently.
She moved back a little, as she cleared her throat, and sat back in her chair, as if trying to be relaxed. Giles was coming down the stairs with yet another big book. Thankfully he had already dipped into it and hadn't seen us.
I glanced at the "relaxed" Faith before sitting back in my chair also, and pulling one of my rings off of my finger to play with it.
'What I don't quite understand is why they waited for eight-thousand volumes before publishing a copy of "The Slayer Shall Become Evil." It just doesn't make sense, why would they want a Slayer to rule them.'
'Well, Giles, you can ease up on the contusion just a little, if ya want, I mean we're not that rancid,' Faith quipped as she slipped a stick of gum into her mouth.
I chuckled a little and watched him as he seated himself back in the chair. 'Yeah, I mean why now? Are these some sort of prophetic journals that ancient peoples wrote? And why did they write them, why not just let it happen?'
'Because perhaps they wanted to warn us, maybe they wanted to tell us something.'
'Like perhaps maybe we shouldn't turn evil?' I said perkily and crossed my legs, sat forward, trying to see into his book.
'Hmm. Perhaps.'
Faith sighed and sat forward a little too. 'So what do we do, just sit back and let it all happen?'
- - -
I drew in a nervous breath as we sat around the circle and Willow recited some Latin words from that same book we had been reading. Apparently this spell was supposed to conjure the spirits of those who wrote it.
Faith sat on the opposite side of the circle, Willow in between us two, Giles on the opposite side of Willow, again, between Faith and I. I glanced at her across the circle, but she seemed all too fascinated at how yellow orbs began to form to materialise a person.
'What do we say?' I whispered to Giles, the spirit still forming inside the circle.
Giles shrugged a little and outstretched a hand towards the spirit. 'We need to find out everything we can about this apocalypse and why now, what's so significant about it, why it has to happen.'
'Geez, don't think I'll have enough time to ask all that,' I muttered.
'Well we need to get whatever information we can, period. Anything useful, so you must focus, after all, you and Faith may be the only ones able to communicate with it.'
Before I could get a chance to answer him, the spirit looked at me, it's eyes horribly piercing, nightmarishly glazed over…white, bar the cloudy iris that pierced me. 'Why did you summon me? Tell me at once,' it ordered and I opened my mouth. Again, before I had a chance to say anything, it spoke. 'You are the Slayer,' it said as if realizing it only now, as if it had seen something new as I opened my mouth.
I didn't really know how to respond to that. So I nodded. Faith alerted it to her by saying al at once, 'Hey, me too.'
It turned to her, and looked at moment. 'No.'
She raised her eyebrows and nodded a little, moving her eyes to the space in front of her. 'Er…yes.'
He folded his arms and stood before her, looking at her as if she was some sort of parasite struggling to get back it's dignity. 'That isn't possible. Slayer's can never exist together, not without the previous one dying first.'
'Well I changed all that,' she said, grinning slightly, moving her head as if to say "I'm totally cooler than you."
Silence. He folded his arms and looked back to me. I inwardly cursed for him doing so. He crept me out. He had an ancient, raggedy, haunted look about him. Not particularly friendly, however not particularly threatening either. But still. That look was…intimidating. It constantly glowed, this aura surrounding his spirit-form. The glow wasn't particularly inviting, more…blinding. But still. He was looking at me, expecting for me to say something, I assume because he didn't move to speak.
'You have read my volume of "Machmachra," yes? That is why you called me.'
I looked blankly at him.
Giles cleared his throat and tapped my arm lightly. 'He means that book that I couldn't read.'
I nodded a little and looked up at him. He was still looking at me. I think I was scared. He looked as if he was going to possess me or something, I dunno. Had that creepy look about him
'Oh, yeah. Did you write all eight-thousand?' I finally said and he nodded his head in response.
'I wrote nine-thousand, eight hundred and sixteen of them. My mentor wrote the first two thousand. My follower wrote the next one. All but three of them were destroyed. They possess vital information of every apocalypse that has taken place was recorded in these volumes, in anticipation of them happening again.'
'So…this one about us, has happened before?' I asked, finally gaining enough courage to look into his eyes.
'Yes. In fact, that is probably the most well-known apocalypse, bar the "Ascension." Because the erachnii have never been able to be destroyed, they will always try until they succeed. They have been defeated a number of times, however not destroyed. They may be trapped beneath the earth, but still they try. They will try to capture you, to exterminate the entire human race, just to be able to live on Earth, with you to rule them.'
'What a stupid dream,' Faith muttered, and the spirit turned to face her.
'Riches you had never dreamed of will be at your waiting hand.'
'But it's not a good thing, right?' I asked him, upon him turning to face me.
Faith scoffed. 'I'd be rich, course it is.'
I frowned a little. 'None of this makes sense. You're saying that this has happened many times before? Have these…acne things ever succeeded in wiping out the entire human race?'
'Nearly, once. I was one of the few handfuls of people remaining. We found shelter and safety deep below the earth, where the erachnii had left to be above earth. But our skin became torn with no sunlight or herbs to heal it. Our wounds never healed, our hunger never disappeared. Starvation, disease and darkness consumed us, leaving the volumes to be discovered by men who would destroy them, no good man left to protect them. In a way, yes, they did succeed. But something stopped their plan. My best guess is the only remaining human on the planet. The Slayer.'
I exhaled a breath I didn't know I was holding. 'Why would she let all of this happen?'
'She wouldn't. They mentally poison her, the strongest living mortal force able to protect them all. She is taken against her own will, forced to watch them kill every human being, her family, friends. Even innocents she'd never met, had no comprehension of.'
'Why do they want to live above Earth so much, much less want a Slayer to rule them?' Giles asked, looking to the spirit.
'What strikes me the most is why the erachnii wanted a Slayer to so much as be present in their destroying of the human race. No one knows why they wanted a Slayer as their ruler. Why not the source, the First, a strong force of evil. Why a strong force of good?'
I glanced at Giles, then at Will. 'I wish someone would listen to me once in a while.'
'Giles, I don't think he can hear you,' I suggested. I had no idea, he could just be ignoring him, but I think that may have been a more obvious reason. I don't even think he could see Will, or he would have at least glanced at them both by now.
'So you think that this will happen again?' I asked him.
He frowned. 'As I said, they will always try.' I didn't have a chance to ask him anything more before orbs appeared and his form faded.
I looked at Giles. 'How the hell are we supposed to stop an entire race of demons flooding the earth with no idea of how, when, why, where…' I guess this was a point of panic.
'Perhaps they won't try,' Faith suggested, shrugging her shoulders as she played with her fingers.
'No, you heard the man. They always will,' Giles answered, and reached for the candle before him, then blew it out. He rose and carried the candle to the table across the lounge of his apartment and rubbed his forehead as he leant his elbow on the kitchen counter. 'Question is, is there anything we can do to stop it from happening at all?'
I looked at Will, who had gathered some of the ingredients, then at Faith, who had blown out a few candles. They both moved away from the circle, and I looked at the space in which had just been occupied by that man. 'I really, really hope so.'
